New Languages
Trying to cope with a new language,
I found it a struggle as I travelled
By bus, when a French bus conductor
Got cross with me after I offered
Him coins on my way from Ferney
To Geneva, during my summer holidays.
I required Swiss francs, but had taken
French francs along to cover my journey.
I could not make sense of his words.
Getting back to my friends, they explained
That I required two sets of coins.
Then I suddenly remembered, how little
Time I give to Italians in the chipper,
Chinese workers in the takeaway,
When I eat at Indian restaurants back
In Dublin, have my hair styled
By African women, or order drinks
From Asian workers in pubs, how
Difficult it is for all those people
Who are far away from their homelands.
Yet we seldom notice or make any effort
To learn or speak their languages
By Mary Guckian
India; poetry in commotion
People everywhere like ants
Hump-necked oxen and plump artificial birds
I look for cricket but hear mosquitos
In India, the flat red universe, the country
that never sleeps
Traffic and trafficking both organised and chaotic
Machines and sentient beings, anything goes
Observe the movement of the clever monkeys and kulis
Under the peepal tree the true path was shown
There is no end to roadside homes, trades
Everything is near but for how far
People squat with bums close to ground
And the work gets done
Equanimity and the sun go hand-in-hand
As scarecrows perform salutations
Give us the sun to our green land
To find liberation
Can happiness come in our flabby waists
Our exposure of flesh, our fatted animals
India and mother nature as one
But in our world the colours run
Happiness is found in nodding heads, hard beds
and sell
In butterflies, smiling faces and greetings that glow
In dusty-haired people dusting cars with rags
True wealth is in the heart, if only we’d know
In India everything is impermanent
In the moment is the only way to go
Or in the burning ghats of the holy city
Beside the Ganges where daily people wash head to toe
For true holiday spirit don’t forget the soul
In satsangs and ashrams where spirituality flows
Is this the incarnation for a dip in the Ganga
My choice, my suffering, just observe and let go
So thanks for experience, namaste Siddhartha and co
I’ll always remember wherever I roam
Your incense and people etched deep in my soul
Most importantly where the feet are,
will always be home
By Jonny
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Who owned this house?
Who owned this house? For sure I know.
My parents lived here long ago.
Beside the church where mother prayed,
Relations welcomed when they stayed.
Grandchildren playing on the grass.
The decent bell called out for mass.
I turn the key and walk within.
All’s quiet now a dearth of din.
The clock has stopped at half past three.
My mother would announce the tea.
This house holds memories sad and sweet.
But I have others now to meet.
I cannot linger long to grieve
And so I slowly take my leave.
By Carmel McCarthy
Childminder
I sit at the telly,
I’m all alone.
Enter a child
With an ice-cream cone.
No matter how hard
He tries to lick,
It drips down his front
Twice as quick.
I close my eyes
And try to snooze
And I don’t give a damn
If he licks his shoes.
Oh obnoxious child
Left in my care
While his parents
Are living it up somewhere.
It’s he who will win
As he takes his nap,
Having smiled at his granny,
He sits on my lap.
And now we are both
Quite reconciled.
What a picture we make-
Grandmother and child.
By Marie McAuliffe
The Spire
As I went in to see the spire,
I stopped and gazed with desire,
The monument is very tall,
It is the biggest of them all,
And as it glows through the night,
It makes the stars look Oh so bright,
It lights up O’Connell Street,
And all the children think it’s neat.
By Nadine Nolan Age 9
So many, so much
So many voices,
So many fears,
So many cries,
So many tears,
So much anger,
So much pain,
So much fighting,
Too much of everything.
By Ailish Brady
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Peace
Peace perchance to live
The parties met yet very little give
Around the table meetings by the score
For each to bend and give a little more
One life so cheap, worth keeping alive?
No bombs to shatter quiet lives
The history old and tainted by the battle
Bodies strewn in streets like blooded cattle
The abattoir is closed throw down your tools
or continue to your deaths like silly fools
By Michelle Gleeson
Be Here Now
“Be here now,” the Guru said
“The past is over and totally dead
You’ve learned your lesson, God speed your ways
And help you live it day by day.
Savour the moment, the mountain, the sea.
Look waves are swirling just for me
Tossing their foam in a milky dance
As clouds glare down from a threatening stance
They promise a storm, let it come, let it go
The earth will be the better you know
More refreshed then it is right now
When it settles down, after the row.”
By Carmel McCarthy
Changing Times
By stealth,
our city grows.
In its heart,
a black vein, flows.
Where to now?
one must ask,
its dithering mass.
By Thos. Maher
View from a balcony
As I sit here burning
There is a yearning
To see you smile
And ease this aching heart of mine.
Like driftwood drifting
Between day and night
A cock crows
In the midmorning sun
Passion burns deep inside
Life something more than this.
By Dolores Duffy
Gray Green Water
Fingers of rain lash the peninsula from heavy
brooding clouds
Forbidden love of rocks and water.
Gray green pool sits with ships of striped colour
settling between God and us.
From the starlings come and whistle a song
borrowed from a lark.
By Robert Morah
As always, we welcome contributions to The Poetry
Place, which can be sent to the NewsFour offices at 15 Fitzwilliam Street,
Ringsend, Dublin 4.
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